It Figures: Rocky Balboa

After going over a license I had attatchment to that made for a mediocre toy, I figured this week I'd go the other way, and look at a toy that impressed me enough to buy in on a license I had very little attachment to. From NECA, here's a look at Rocky Balboa from Rocky III.

NECA is surprisingly the third company to take a go at making action figures of the Italian Stallion, with a line contemporary to the third movie by Remco, and a toyline spanning the series by Jakks Pacific in the mid-2000s that gave us the infamous 'The Meat'- a novelty single-carded figure of the slab of meat that he beats up to train. Jakks at the time was pretty experienced at making modern articulated figures of muscled up men thanks to their WWE  license, so few people foresaw NECA bringing much more to the line. That notion was dispelled when the figures were revealed. Rocky is beautifully detailed with an amazingly realistic skin texture to the sculpt, and plenty of anatomical detail like raised veins.

More than that- the skin manages to look a lot more like skin than any other toy on the market, and there's a reason behind that. Because so much of the figure is uncovered skin, NECA was able to experiment in the production with mixing dye into translucent plastic. The result is a quality of reflection that is unique and manages to look almost like real skin.

But unsatisfied to beat the Jakks effort on looks alone, NECA made their Rocky line more articulated as well. Rocky has hinge-swivels in the shoulders, elbows, knees, ankles and hips, with ball-socket wrists, hinged toes and an ab-crunch. This means he can reach just about any ring pose you can think of. The sculpt, covered in veins and precise cuts, also helps to hide these joint, as do the soft rubber boxing shorts.

The combination of realism and articulation in this figure makes for an amazing piece that transcends toy and goes directly into art. Whether or not you have any attatchment to Rocky, if you like toys, the level of artisanship put into making the most realistic figure they can makes it worth it to pick up one of NECA's several figures from the Rocky line.