Maxillius the Harvester

Why do you never hear about the Grim Sower? Before the Lord of Death appears, there is Maxillius the Harvester. Necronominus comes forth to raise the dead and grow his army, and the Harvester's job is to give his master fields of freshly reaped bodies to turn to his side. Maxillius is as unstoppable as the passage of time. He is a force of nature that cannot be reasoned with or slowed. He exists only to kill. Entire companies of knights have fallen at his feet as the Harvester comes to reap, a scythe in one hand and an hourglass swimming with the souls of his victims in the other. When you hear the rattling of the bones he wears upon his chest, you know the Harvester is close. It's great how the Four Horsemen can just keep pilfering real-world bone names for important Congregation of Necronominus members, but eventually they're going to run low and we're going to get, like, "Femurulon" or something. And the bio will talk about how he's Necronominus' lap-dog. We already had the mandible, and now we're getting the maxilla, too: that's the fused pair of bones that form the roof of your mouth, your nasal cavity, and part of your eye socket. Which makes it ironic, then, that Maxillius doesn't have any eyes at all - if you look up under his hood, you'll see an inhumanly wide mouth and a plate of solid bone roughly covering the area where eyes would normally be. So, yes: "robe." Maxillius wears a black softgoods robe with a rope belt and ornate decorations made from various bones: flared shoulderpads built from animal jawbones (deer, sheep, cow, goat, something), a breastplate with lots of long thin bones forming a radial pattern around a tiny skull, and a loincloth or drape or something hanging from that made of cobbled together pelvises, facial bones, and more. The "metal" rings are just plastic like the rest, but they look realistic. He also has wigs made of red feathers - are those natural, or part of his garment? It's up to you! Beneath the robe, the Horsemen have given us a totally plain skeleton body. No armor, no clothing, just a skeleton. They've apparently sold these by themselves in the past? Not that I've ever bought, but Shocka assure me it was an option. It definitely reads as a Mythic Legions skeleton and nothing else: the bones are simply too thick to mistake for any other toyline. Like, Boss Fight Studio's Epic HACKS skeletons could fit with Marvel Legends or whatever, right? But since Mythic Legions has that chunky, MotU Classics-derived style, you're not going to put this next to Captain America and call it "naked Ghost Rider," you dig? It retains all the usual articulation, and the chest is done in a clever way: there's a dark, solid section for the spine to plug into, and then the front of the ribcage is a separate piece that's glued onto the front so it actually looks hollow. Neat! The set even includes a more normal skull to put on top of the body, so you don't have to ignore the weird Maxillius head. Since all the bone armor can be removed from the figure, that will just leave the plain black robe. (It doesn't open in the front, so you'll have to lift it over the figure's head whenever you want to take it on or off.) So a plain hooded robe, combined with a plain skeleton... this set is up to its third mode now, because you can make a plain Grim Reaper! That creation is furthered by Maxillius' accessories, a large scythe and a creepy hourglass. The scythe is straightforward and traditional, a curved wooden body with a handle sticking out the middle, and a long, curved blade affixed to the end. The hourglass is molded with a translucent center, so it actually looks like glass, and hangs via a ring from a handle the figure can hold. In addition to normal "holding" hands, we also get a pair with the first finger extended to point at his next victim. Very ominous! Unfortunately for me, my set included two right hands and no left. It's probably not supposed to be that way. Especially since the wrist joint runs the same directionon both: at least if one went horizontal and one went vertical, he'd be able to point in different ways, but I'm pretty sure this was a packing mistake. Pretty rare for the Horsemen. Just like the Undead Builder Pack, Maxillius the Harvester being three figures in one really does wonders for his value in this series. It's a creepy design on its own, but being able to turn it into just any ol' Grim Reaper is fun, and the bare skeleton is a nice bonus. We will say, however, that the Horsemen have really raised the bar of our expectations for when they release their Figura Obscura Ghost of Christmas Future. -- 03/22/25 What bone name should they give us next? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.