Arachnotron

This Tachikoma looks weird. Built from the remains of the original Spider Mastermind, the Arachnotron is a deadly foe to encounter, equipped with a turret that's capable of shredding armour and health in moments! When that says "built from the remains" of the Spider Mastermind, it's more like a recipe than an ingredient: the Spider Mastermind was the final boss of Doom 2016, and after Doomguy doomed it, its remains were salvaged and harvested for genetic material. It's not like the mass-produced Arachnotrons were literally built from the Spider Mastermind the way Robocop was built from Alex Murphy. Paralleling the modern games, Arachnotrons were introduced in 1994's Doom II as smaller versions of the original's final boss. That lineage makes them a very iconic enemy, and thus why I wanted to get this toy. It's a skull-faced brain riding around in a spider-tank, that's very memorable! Just as the Cacodemon was inspired by a certain Dungeons & Dragons monster, the Spider Mastermind seems to be influenced by the evil alien leader in 1986's Invaders from Mars. But not Krang. Numskull's Arachnotron is about 7" tall, depending on how you pose it. Yes, unlike the Cacodemon, A-A-Tron gets movable parts! All four of its armored tank legs get a large balljoint where they meet the body, and the plasma cannon sticking up over its head has both a swivel and a hinge, allowing you to aim it around. So it's not the most poseable thing ever, but even a few points of movement on a toy like this, someething that's almost a glorified Funko POP!, is better than nothing. Arachnotrons in Doom II were slightly taller than Billy Jr. Jr., and the Doom Eternal ones were even a little bigger. Again that's more or less in Mystery Mini scale. In some poses the weight of the figure will be too much for the balljoint hips to fully support, and the gun can swivel out of place sometimes as well. The sculpt of the figurine is soft and spongy, but that's true to the way the collectibles look in-game, so we're not going to judge them poorly for that. Would it have been fun if some company had made realistic Doom enemies? Sure, but that didn't happen, not even the more human-sized ones, so the idea of a true-to-life Arachnotron was right out! Nothing on this figure is sharp; the closest are the points on its chin, but those are still softer tham the Cacodemon's horns. All the mechanical parts of the chassis are one of two shades of flat grey, and although there are blue... lights? on the front of the shins, the three-pronged symbols on the sides are only painted on, not sculpted, and the contrast isn't enough to make them stand out from the grey by themselves. The "bone" part of the face is more yellow on the toy than in the game, but that makes it more distinct from the two marooons used for the brain. I think those spikes on the forehead are supposed to be biological, not grey like the metal they are here. I've never played a Doom, but I still recognize the big brain-spider enemy as a classic thing, so as soon as I learned this toyline existed, it was one of the ones I wanted to get; it's just taken me this long to find one that didn't have shipping charges higher than the cost of the actual toy. Just like the Cacodemon, this is a fun representation of the toy seen in the game, but having articulation makes it even better. -- 05/07/25 What Doom enemy should we cover next? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.