Zanzibar (Dreadnok 7 Pack)

Not every figure in a wave or set can be a winner. No one proves that adage more than Zanzibar from the 30th Anniversary Dreadnoks set. They really tried to make him work, but honestly, he just kind of fails on almost every level. There are some nice things about him, but he just doesn’t really come together at all well and as such, he’s a pretty lame figure all around. I’ve always had kind of a soft spot for Zanzibar just because he was a pirate. I like the idea of a modern day pirate falling in with the Dreadnoks. It just adds another level of scumminess to the group. The original Zanzibar just looked dirty and nasty and definitely like someone on the fringes of society that would make a perfect Dreadnok. However, the 30th Anniversary update really doesn’t do a very good job of referencing that look. First of all, Zanzibar’s eyepatch has switched sides. It’s not that surprising when you realize that his head was also a refugee from the “Joe-rassic Park” figures (and is so far the only one that we’ve seen beyond prototype stage that hasn’t come out), but it’s still kind of a shame the design team couldn’t be bothered to get the eyepatch right on him since it’s really the only distinguishing feature from the original Zanzibar that made it into the update. While the eyepatch is on the wrong side, I do really like the face sculpt. It definitely has character between a grimacing facial expression and a scar under his visible eye. (Gee, visible scar…maybe the eyepatch should be covering the eye that might have been injured in a fight, come on!) However, I also really don’t understand his hair choices here. Between the Ed Grimley hair point up front and his mullet in the back, it’s just a bizarre look and something that I honestly think would get a Dreadnok beaten up for.

From the neck down, he’s a bit of an interesting mishmash of parts. The torso and arms work really well together, and that makes sense because they come from a pair of different Storm Shadows (the chest from shirtless Rise of Cobra Arctic Storm Shadow and the arms from 2009 Cobra box set Storm Shadow). I really like the detailing on his torso. The scars make it clear that Zanzibar has definitely seen some fights in his day and he didn’t always just beat down his enemies. Plus (and I realize this is weird), but I do appreciate that the Hasbro designers went as far as to mold nipples into the bare torso. A lot of lines that do shirtless characters don’t pay attention to that particular detail and a shirtless chest just looks a little off without it. However, even at the smaller scale, Hasbro wanted to make sure that there was a clear difference between someone not wearing a shirt and someone wearing a skintight top. Even though they may not have been from the same era of Joe product, the wiry arms work well with the wiry torso. That said, I really wish they would have at least used a different torso. Previous versions of Zanzibar have all worn a torn up shirt and Hasbro has a perfectly good torn up shirt mold thanks to the 25th Anniversary Ripper. I don’t think the part-sharing would have been that noticeable, would have tied him closer to the original Zanzibar and might have even mitigated some of the issues that his shoulder pads and legs have just because that torso is a bit bigger. While I like the way the torso came together, using the Iron Grenadier Destro legs really didn’t help the figure’s look all that much. Those legs are huge. Zanzibar’s thighs are almost as big as his head. It wasn’t an issue when Destro used them because his upper body was also pretty bulky, but using the thinner, wiry Storm Shadow parts for the upper body really makes these thunder thighs stand out. If he’s not towards the front of your display shelf, Zanzibar’s proportion issues don’t look so bad and I really didn’t notice just how big his legs were until I started reviewing him. However, now that I’ve seen it, I can’t really unsee it. The details on these legs are great, but again, I’m not sure how well they fit for a Dreadnok. The original Zanzibar was wearing ripped pants and boots. While the Iron Grenadier Destro legs definitely have a pirate-y vibe to them, I’m not sure that vibe works really well with the kind of pirate Zanzibar is. Zanzibar’s filecard makes it pretty clear he is lowbrow and very crude. The Destro legs fit more on a fancy-pirate or someone that took their love of Jack Sparrow just a little too far. Zanzibar would be more about functionality and fashion and while the boots are definitely fashionable, I don’t see they’d be something that would fit with his general modus operandi.

While I’m not wild about the choices the design team made for Zanzibar’s parts, I really can’t fault the execution when it comes to his paint scheme. Zanzibar is a pretty sharp looking figure. The paint on the detailing is relatively clean though the purple spots on his shoulder pads were a little misaligned. I really find myself liking the pirate tattoo on his bicep. It looks sharp, but honestly, I wouldn’t have minded seeing him with a couple of tattoos in addition to it. First and foremost, a Dreadnok tattoo would look great, and as a pirate, I think it would make sense if he was the Dreadnok with the most ink. Plus, I think it probably would have been in the budget since his torso and arms barely needed painting to begin with. The silver detailing on his pads is really sharp and even his weapons get some nice paint apps. However, even that pales in comparison to how many paint apps his pants get. From the waist down, Zanzibar has eight different colors, including the attention to detail of making the straps a different color than the pad on the front of his right leg. It’s a very subtle difference, but the pad is more of a coppery brown while the straps themselves are just a flat brown. That level of detailing is usually only seen on Joe Con figures so I have to admit the paint job on his legs is really impressive. I’m not quite sure why they made the strap holding on his holster purple, but they did and that’s really the only bad thing I can say about his paint scheme. Green isn’t what I was expecting for his legs, but it really does help make him stand out and break up the monotony of the leg colors in the set.

Finally, Zanzibar has some decent accessories, and while they work for the most part, I’m going to have to smack him around pretty hard for the one accessory that really fails to work well, the shoulder pads. Zanzibar and Taurus (sorry, I refuse to call him “Bull”) share the same shoulder pads. The pads are pretty flawed and I’ll explain why in a moment, but they look worse on Zanzibar. It’s pretty clear they were designed for Taurus who is a much bulkier figure. On Taurus, they still have problems, but at least they don’t look oversized on him. The biggest problem with the pads in general is the placement of the holster. It’s an awkward position to try and draw a gun from and the handle of the gun sticks up pretty high and makes things look even more awkward. I do, however, like the knife holster that rests on his lower back. It’s a great spot for someone to keep a final hidden, last-ditch weapon that can be pulled out to surprise an enemy that has come in to apprehend him and then allow him to get away. Unfortunately, the knife is really small. Its handle doesn’t really fit in either hand at all well. It’s a shame that a nice, unique accessory winds up being pretty much useless aside from an accent to his outfit. I do appreciate Hasbro digging out the mold for the flintlock from SDCC Destro for Zanzibar. It’s an unusual choice and it really gives Zanzibar a little bit more flair. It’s also not as much of a problem for me since they also gave him the small revolver that’s designed to fit in Destro’s holster. If the only gun Zanzibar had was a flintlock, I’d have a problem, but since he also has a modern pistol, I don’t mind him running around with such an old school pirate weapon. He also gets to wield Destro’s sword as a cutlass (even though they’re not quite the same thing) since he’s a pirate. There is a small part of me that would have liked to have seen Zanzibar equipped with a hammer and a spear like he had back in the day, the accessories they gave him here really do make sense so I don’t necessarily mind the deviation from the original look here. Perfect world, I think I would have liked to have seen the sword traded out for the spear (especially since the pike the Crimson Neo-Viper came with looks a lot like his original spear), but the sword and flintlock combo does look appropriately pirate-y.

Truthfully, I’ve always felt Zanzibar was the weakest of the Dreadnoks, so it doesn’t surprise me that he’s the weakest figure out of this set of Dreadnoks either. I liked the other Dreadnoks in the set so much that it wasn’t a big deal for Zanzibar to come along like a barnacle clinging to the side of a boat, but in hand, he’s actually even weaker than I expected. He deviates a lot further from his original look than most of the Dreadnoks in the set do and the changes that were made for the most part really don’t make a better figure. Like I said in the beginning, not every figure can be a winner, but mercifully not all weak figures are as weak as Zanzibar here. There are worse figures in the modern line, but not by much and most of the ones I can think of are from the timeframe where Hasbro was still ironing out the kinks with the new style of construction. While it’s good that with Zanzibar in the mix literally every original Dreadnok has been made in some form, I’m not necessarily certain the line was missing a whole lot by Zanzibar not being there, especially when the treatment he was given was this weak.