NECA The Golden Angel Ultimate Elder Predator

This is the NECA The Golden Angel Ultimate Elder Predator figure. NECA released this figure as part of a line of figures celebrating the 30th anniversary of the film “Predator” (1987). This Predator may look unfamiliar at first glance, but fans of the films will know him as the elder Predator from “Predator 2” (1990). Still don’t recognize him? That’s because this version is him when he was over 270 years younger! This is him as seen in the Dark Horse Comics comic “1718”.
Greyback first visited Earth in the early 1700s, where he encountered the pirate captain Raphael Adolini, and assisted him in fending off the captain’s mutinous crew. At the end of the deadly battle, Adolini gifted the Predator with his flintlock pistol before succumbing to a gunshot wound. Greyback then buried the captain and gifted the dead man with his otherworldly sword.

Because this figure is based on a character from the comics, how detail accurate you find him is really up to you. To me, he actually looks better than the comics! He has a lot of really nice details on him, and it’s difficult not to admire the effort the folks at NECA put into this figure.
The figure includes a variety of accessories, including three interchangeable heads, two pairs of interchangeable hands, an sword hilt, a sword blade, a plasma caster (the shoulder cannon) that attaches to his back, a closed smart disk, an open smart disk, and a flintlock pistol. It also features extendable and retractable side blades on the right arm, and the signature hidden explosive device on the left arm.

The articulation is mostly pretty good, but due to some of the gear on him, some of the articulation is a bit obstructed. You still get enough articulation to pull off a wide variety of action poses. As far as issues go, there are a few concerns. When you first get the figure out of the box, the joints are all extremely tight. I’ve heard that using a hairdryer on the joints or placing the figure in hot water can help loosen the joints, but I’ve never tested this. I just moved each joint around a bit until they loosen. The next concern is that the pegs on the hands are very fragile, and will break if you aren’t careful when swapping out the hands. Finally, the side blades are made mostly of a flexible type of plastic, but can still break easily because of how thin they are (as I learned the hard way). Be very careful with those.

All in all, I absolutely LOVE the look of this figure. NECA absolutely nailed this guy! I can really only recommend this figure to die hard Predator fans willing to take the risk with the figure’s tight joints and fragile pieces. If you’re just looking for a cool Predator figure to display, then by all means get him. He’s definitely worth having.