The Kid with the Broken Halo
I finally have a Scud: The Disposable Assassin action figure.
The vast majority of you are, right now, scratching your heads and wondering what the big deal is. A smaller, more knowing number are nodding appreciatively while a tiny tiny minority is consumed with jealous, lustful envy. It's okay - I love you all, regardless, for the spirit of Hank Gritt is strong within me. As a (one-time card-carrying) Grittite, such is my duty under the requirements of manliness and machismo. Our karma shalt run over your dogma forever and ever, all praise be to Hank, Amen.
Now, to the business at hand.
This is Scud. He's the star of my second all-time favourite comic book (after Transmetropolitan) and the brainchild of a guy who was semi-famous for this and eventually earned an Oscar nomination for this. Over the course of 24 issues Scud dealt with matters including (but not limited to): plug-headed monsters, prison riots, Judeo-Christian messiahs armed with laser guns, cybernetically-enchanced Mafia goons with combining robot vehicles, resurrected American statesmen who'd sold their souls to the Devil, perverted robotophiles, inter-dimensional sock puppets, rogue angels, greedy demons, Bruce Campbell, dragons who talked like Lemmy from Motorhead, Hollywood executives, tough-guy contests, werewolf/black hole hybrids, Heaven, Hell, God and true love.
But there's more to it than that.
Scud: The Disposable Assassin was a deeply personal work of rare insight, cunningly disguised with surreality and undead killer monkeys. The title character is, as the name suggests, disposable - he comes out of a vending machine, eliminates his programmed target and self-destructs. Born to die, there to be used up, one eye forever closed as if always taking aim. Another in a nameless, faceless series whose shelf life expires as soon as their usefulness passes. He even comes with a warning label on his back.
Our boy, here, broke away from that pre-determined fate, had way-cool adventures across time, space and reality, fell in love, got the girl and won. It's pretty uplifting stuff... provided you can look past the Dogma-esque digs at organised religion and consumerism, and not choke on the never-ending procession of in-jokes, movie quotes and utterly bizarre pop-culture references. Scud is, undoubtedly, an acquired taste. So with that out of the way, let's talk about the damn toy!
Scud is a beauty, and a rare one at that. He was made by a toy company whose history was... troubled, to put it politely. I'd pre-ordered one of these when they were first announced but the well dried up long before delivery. Fast-forward to a fortnight ago and, voila, one popped up on eBay. stareyednight all but yelled at me to buy it immediately ('cause she's an amazing wife) but that was unnecessary - I had no intention of letting it slip away a second time. He wasn't expensive, but would've been worth twice the price.
This sucker is flexible. He has 19 points of articulation - four in each limb, two in his torso and a ball-jointed neck. The last figure I owned with this much poseability was a Spider-Man and the comparison is apt: Scud was almost always drawn in some outlandishly hyper-real stance. Half the fun, since freeing him from the packaging, has been breaking out the old comics to see how many panels I can duplicate. Result: all of them. Freaking glorious. It is cool to be a robot, as our boy himself would say.
Scud can chill out, too - pinkies always stylishly extended (even on his spare pair of unarmed hands). Injection molded in his trademark canary yellow ("how am I supposed to assassinate anyone when I look like Ronald freaking McDonald?"), Scud's paint budget went into that ridiculously well-printed "warning" sign and clean, smudge-free applications of black. It's all he needs and, truly, makes him look as if he's just stepped off the comic book page.
As seen on the cover of the first issue, this is the pose in which Scud lives on the comic room shelves. Much as I wish the manufacturers had made the rest of the cast (I'd have gone gaga for a Drywall), there's something poetic about Scud being the only one of his kind. Sort of completes the journey from just-another-robot-killer to fully-realised character. Which is what it was all about, of course.
I've always had a thing (sickness?) for owning toys of the characters I love. Most of the time it's an easy ask: Spidey, Green Lantern and the Transformers dominate the aisles of most retail outlets. That makes guys like Scud and Spider Jerusalem all the more special. Everyone has their own black-and-white, small print run, cult-favourite independent comic and Scud is mine. It's my Scott Pilgrim, my Love and Rockets, my Johnny the Homicidal Maniac... and it's pretty freaking cool to have him posed, in the plastic, on my shelf after all these years.
Greet the Fire as Your Friend,
SF
The vast majority of you are, right now, scratching your heads and wondering what the big deal is. A smaller, more knowing number are nodding appreciatively while a tiny tiny minority is consumed with jealous, lustful envy. It's okay - I love you all, regardless, for the spirit of Hank Gritt is strong within me. As a (one-time card-carrying) Grittite, such is my duty under the requirements of manliness and machismo. Our karma shalt run over your dogma forever and ever, all praise be to Hank, Amen.
Now, to the business at hand.
This is Scud. He's the star of my second all-time favourite comic book (after Transmetropolitan) and the brainchild of a guy who was semi-famous for this and eventually earned an Oscar nomination for this. Over the course of 24 issues Scud dealt with matters including (but not limited to): plug-headed monsters, prison riots, Judeo-Christian messiahs armed with laser guns, cybernetically-enchanced Mafia goons with combining robot vehicles, resurrected American statesmen who'd sold their souls to the Devil, perverted robotophiles, inter-dimensional sock puppets, rogue angels, greedy demons, Bruce Campbell, dragons who talked like Lemmy from Motorhead, Hollywood executives, tough-guy contests, werewolf/black hole hybrids, Heaven, Hell, God and true love.
But there's more to it than that.
Scud: The Disposable Assassin was a deeply personal work of rare insight, cunningly disguised with surreality and undead killer monkeys. The title character is, as the name suggests, disposable - he comes out of a vending machine, eliminates his programmed target and self-destructs. Born to die, there to be used up, one eye forever closed as if always taking aim. Another in a nameless, faceless series whose shelf life expires as soon as their usefulness passes. He even comes with a warning label on his back.
Our boy, here, broke away from that pre-determined fate, had way-cool adventures across time, space and reality, fell in love, got the girl and won. It's pretty uplifting stuff... provided you can look past the Dogma-esque digs at organised religion and consumerism, and not choke on the never-ending procession of in-jokes, movie quotes and utterly bizarre pop-culture references. Scud is, undoubtedly, an acquired taste. So with that out of the way, let's talk about the damn toy!
Scud is a beauty, and a rare one at that. He was made by a toy company whose history was... troubled, to put it politely. I'd pre-ordered one of these when they were first announced but the well dried up long before delivery. Fast-forward to a fortnight ago and, voila, one popped up on eBay. stareyednight all but yelled at me to buy it immediately ('cause she's an amazing wife) but that was unnecessary - I had no intention of letting it slip away a second time. He wasn't expensive, but would've been worth twice the price.
This sucker is flexible. He has 19 points of articulation - four in each limb, two in his torso and a ball-jointed neck. The last figure I owned with this much poseability was a Spider-Man and the comparison is apt: Scud was almost always drawn in some outlandishly hyper-real stance. Half the fun, since freeing him from the packaging, has been breaking out the old comics to see how many panels I can duplicate. Result: all of them. Freaking glorious. It is cool to be a robot, as our boy himself would say.
Scud can chill out, too - pinkies always stylishly extended (even on his spare pair of unarmed hands). Injection molded in his trademark canary yellow ("how am I supposed to assassinate anyone when I look like Ronald freaking McDonald?"), Scud's paint budget went into that ridiculously well-printed "warning" sign and clean, smudge-free applications of black. It's all he needs and, truly, makes him look as if he's just stepped off the comic book page.
As seen on the cover of the first issue, this is the pose in which Scud lives on the comic room shelves. Much as I wish the manufacturers had made the rest of the cast (I'd have gone gaga for a Drywall), there's something poetic about Scud being the only one of his kind. Sort of completes the journey from just-another-robot-killer to fully-realised character. Which is what it was all about, of course.
I've always had a thing (sickness?) for owning toys of the characters I love. Most of the time it's an easy ask: Spidey, Green Lantern and the Transformers dominate the aisles of most retail outlets. That makes guys like Scud and Spider Jerusalem all the more special. Everyone has their own black-and-white, small print run, cult-favourite independent comic and Scud is mine. It's my Scott Pilgrim, my Love and Rockets, my Johnny the Homicidal Maniac... and it's pretty freaking cool to have him posed, in the plastic, on my shelf after all these years.
Greet the Fire as Your Friend,
SF