|
This one goes out to all the racist dumb^&@%s!
The legendary power of Heimdall, as the guardian of the
Rainbow Bridge, is unmatched in Asgaard. The sword he wields allows him to perform stunning feats of greatness during battle.
Back when Thor was just a movie in development and not the successful penultimate step in Marvel's run-up to The Avengers, there was a bit of a kerfuffle over the casting of Idris Elba as Heimdall. And by "kerfuffle," we mean "a bunch of stupid inbred crackers got mad that a Norse god who was never real in the first place was being played by a black man." The racists called for a boycott. To their credit, Marvel's response was basically "so long, nobody needs you anyway." Well, $181 million later, they were proven right, and the Council of Conservative Citizens was proven to have just about as much influence on the real world as their fellow hate group One Million Moms.
One of the excuses the racists used to excuse their racism was that Heimdall was described as "the whitest of them all," suggesting he may have been an albino. The problem with that is
that the descriptor comes from Thrymskvitha in the Poetic Eddas, which is a story about Thor getting his hammer stolen. All the gods gather to discuss what to do, and they're all given brief descriptions. Heimdall's is "hvítastr ása," which could mean "whitest god," but could just as easily "brightest" god; it could mean he had the shiniest armor, was the most virtuous or beautiful (since the Norse equated light with goodness) or even the most clever. He is the one who came up with the idea for how to get the hammer back, after all.
Unlike the other gods in the film, Heimdall never takes his helmet off - he's always wearing the giant curved horns, and so this toy follows suit. The little bit of face visible though the gap definitely looks like Idris Elba, though the eyes are just black dots, not colorful like they were in the film. We wouldn't mind an angrier expression, either.
Heimdall's costume is gold and brown, and while that worked
fine on film, it doesn't look so great on the toy. There's nothing wrong with the way they painted it, it's just that the colors all blend together. Maybe a more metallic gold would have helped? His boots are dark brown, with golden armor at the top just below his knees. There are five golden bars on the outside of each leg, a gold belt holds up a brown skirt and loincloth, and he has gold bracers with ribbed patterns inset. The armor on his chest features a large round design right in the center of the sternum with a matching circle just below, and large, squarish shoulder pads. It doesn't look at all like the comic costume, but it doesn't need to.
Heimdall comes with his sword, but he doesn't really have the articulation needed to take advantage of it. The head is a balljoint, but it only seems to turn side to side. The shoulders are swivel/hinge, but the elbows are just hinged and there are no sort of wrists. Though his torso is made in two pieces, it doesn't actually turn where they join. The legs are fine, other than the lack of ankles. Really, Heimdall seems like a forerunner of the Avengers toys, with their scaled-back articulation. Anyway, that means he can barely wield the sword in any interesting poses, and he can't stand in the "Oscar pose" like he should!
The sword itself does a good job of copying
the one designed for the film, but it's too short. Look at him standing with it: it comes all the way up to his chin; the toy's, meanwhile, only comes to mid-chest. It needs about ½" more on the blade to really be accurate. And of course, he should have more articulation to really take advantage of it.
Heimdall was part of the second series of Deluxe figures, which is why you never saw him: the Deluxe figures sold even more slowly
than the standard figures, because most of them were garbage. Thankfully, Heimdall doesn't come with a big stupid "weather gun" or something - rather, he gets part of the chamber where he oversees the Bifrost bridge. Its's just a 3¾" wide display base, with a curvy design that matches the kind of sci-fi tech seen in the movie. There's even a small section of the rainbow bridge itself! If you poke the sword down into the pedestal, it fires two of the dumbest lightning bolt missiles since Electro. Okay, that part's a little silly, but isn't that the same thing that happens in the movie?
Idris Elba did a wonderful job in Thor, further proving that white supremacists are some of the dumbest emeffers in the world. True, you had to live in some kind of cartoon world in order to find Asgaard Defender Heimdall on the pegs, but if you can get him, you'll have a pretty decent toy and an important part of the movie's cast. Plus, think of how mad it'll make the racists.
-- 06/18/12
|
