"Gnaw"

Gnawgahyde is one of those characters and figures that has kind of gotten better with age. I really wasn't wild about him when I was a kid, but as time has gone on, I've grown more attached to him. The poaching nature of the figure was a very unique characteristic, and while I had no special attachment to the actual figure itself, the JoeCon set in 2004 changed my mind.

Ironic that it wasn't Gnawgahyde but the GIJCC Exclusive "Crusher" figure that really opened my eyes to the greatness of the original Gnawgahyde.

This figure takes the spirit of Gnawgahyde, but takes him in a somewhat less... "colorful" direction. Where the original version of the Dreadnok poacher had bright yellow leopard print, this figure goes much more muted and much more lion, without the spots and with the obvious mane around the shoulders. In my opinion, the look works. It works really well. There's no reason to think that Gnawga... well... "Gnaw" as the case may be, doesn't have several different skinned animals that he wears as a vest, and the weathering on the mane of this one looks spectacular.

Using what appears to be Arctic Storm Shadow tooling from the waist up and Pursuit of Cobra Zartan tooling for his legs, the body style works fairly well, though he's a little scrawny for the barrel-chested Aussie Dreadnok.

One aspect of the figure that works perfectly is the new head sculpt. His bald head and unique facial hair are both very evocative of the original character, and I absolutely love that little smirk at the corner of his mouth. A very cool head sculpt really rounds off this figure nicely.

Gnaw doesn't come with much, but what he comes with does make some sense. First and foremost he has a great hat with some awesome leopard print banding, though it doesn't quite fit as nicely as I would like. Along with that, he's got the sniper rifle that came with Resolute Scarlett, also with a nice hint of leopard print. Unfortunately the shape of the rifle handle doesn't allow for a very effective hold on the weapon, but it's a nice design nonetheless. A removable knife slides into the sheath at the back of his extremely nicely detailed removable vest, complete with four pouches and the aforementioned mane across the shoulders. A completely different look than the '89 action figure, but an awesome update.

Gnaw... ah, screw it, Gnawgahyde is pretty different from his vintage version, but with a new head and new vest, he makes for a very nice update to his vintage figure. Certainly not a straight line-by-line translation, but I think the update works well and I really like the figure all told. Not the best of the set, but pretty decent, none-the-less.

GRADE:

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