Torn: Covert Operations

Love to be a badass warrior and name myself after my favorite Natalie Imbruglia cover song. Mysterious and stoic, Torn is an outside agent to Alpha Team. He appears out of nowhere like a ghost to aid in the battle against the Kharn, before once again fading into the shadows. Torn prefers using his forearm blades. When he can't get up close and personal, his unearthly service weapon does the trick. Torn first appeared in the first episode of the animation, just standing around and being ominous. He had a larger role in Episode 2, but that just served to deepen the mystery. The website does provide a little extra info - no one's sure if he's a Kharn spy or from another planet and here to help fight the invasion, and he's being hunted by the bounty hunter Krepitus - but any firm answers will have to wait for future episodes. Whatever his story, Torn wears smooth purple body armor over a black suit beneath. It makes him look dark and stealthy, like you'd expect a Covert Ops specialist to be. The armor has sculpted straps to look like they're holding it on, and the hood he wears to hide his face has a subtle texture you usually only see on much pricier toys - it's almost as good as the McFarlane Avatar figures we reviewed earlier this week. The official renders show him with black armor over purple clothes, which also looks pretty cool; that also has some blue tron lines and gloves that expose his fingers, in case you wanted to try your hand at doing a little custom work. You might want to do a little touch-up anyway: his belt is unpainted, so the part over the purple is purple, and the part over the black is black. You know we're not going to complain about that corner being cut, not when the toy only costs one dollar. The hood is a separate piece, packaged next to the figure on the blister card. Since the hood normally comes down as low as his nose, being removable gives you the opportunity to admire the design. Torn appears to be a brunette man with a pointy beard and (what seems to be intended to be) a curled handlebar mustache. It's reminiscent of Zartan's original "beard guy" mask, with good reason. In addition to being a fully sculpted, painted, and articulated action figure you can buy for just a buck, Torn has a play feature. As seen in the cartoons, he's some sort of alien, simply masquerading as human. So like the '80s Power Lords (or Professor Quirrel), you can turn his head around to reveal an alien face on the back of his head! The undisguised head is pink, with dark eyes and bits of silver embedded in the flesh. He ends up looking slightly like one of the aliens from They Live. It's creepy! The hood bulges out slightly in the back, which means it still fits over the human face's pointed beard when it's turned to the back. Turn's weapons of choice are his forearm blades, pieces that plug into the outside of the wrists and can swivel up out of the way or point forward to attack. They're molded from black plastic and not painted, but you can pretend he prefers black blades because they're better for stealth. His gun looks like one of the molds from the Covert Ops Weapons Pack, but it's not: new mold! More than that, it can store in the holster on his right leg. Get that? A working holster on a 4" scale action figure that only cost one dollar. There are Marvel Legends that don't even offer that much! If you count the forearm blades, Torn has two more points of articulation than the other characters. That, plus the play feature and the working holster make him a standout in the line, even before you get into the mysterious backstory Final Faction is crafting for him! -- 01/07/22

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