Lucio

Nobody loves you, Lucio. Name: Lúcio Correia dos Santos Age: 26 Occupation: DJ, Freedom Fighter Affiliation: None Much has been said about how horny Overwatch's designs are (and how that relates to the Pope), but it seems to have missed Rollerblade Jesus, here. People are thirsty for the gorilla, they're thirsty for the dirty desert twink, for Darkest Timeline Gimli, for Combat Mama, for the whole host of robots... but here comes Red Bull on his dumbass skates and his portable boombox, and nobody seems to care much at all. Or if they do, they're certainly not as loud as all the other camps are. Also, we'd make fun of the combination of "DJ and freedom fighter," but right now in the real world K-pop stans are (successfully) using the power of dance gifs to undermine white supremecists, so we live in weird times. Hey, speaking of which, Lucio's backstory reveals that he grew up in Rio's favelas, and performed music to help his neighbors forget their troubles. But when a company wanted to redevelop the land, they imposed controls on the residents in the name of building a more orderly society: enforcing curfews, cracking down on what the company perceived as lawless behavior, and exploiting the populace as a cheap labor force. Gee, that sounds... super fricking familiar right now. [Lucio says #ACAB --ed.] It doesn't say why he wears robot pants, but since the game is set in the second half of the 21st century, maybe that's typical future fashion, who knows? In addition to his bright blue Gundam legs, Dreadmau5 wears light-based rollerblades, a tank top with his frog logo on the chest, and a bright yellow backpack with a turbine or something inside it. He's got a pair of translucent green goggles fitted into a yellow headset on his left ear, and a cord pokes down from that to hide under the shoulder strap of his backpack. At least until you move the head. His hair should be a more consistent color between the braids and the dreads, with a less immediate fae from brown to tan. Apparently the things hanging on the end of his hair are tiny speakers - what a fun, goofy design idea! There's little room for question that part of the reason the Overwatch figures were such slow sellers is their scale - although they're advertised as being 6" toys, they're immediately obvious as being smaller than equivalent toys, even from Hasbro. Marvel Legends, Star Wars Black Series, Power Rangers Lightning Collection, even the upcoming GI Joe and Ghostbusters lines... they can all play well together, but Lucio and the other Overwatch Ultimates look out of place. Maybe it's because sculptor Arlen Pelletier had to start from a digital file provided by Blizzard? They do have the articulation, though. James "Sugar Boots" Franklin has a balljointed head, hinged neck, swivel/hinge shoulders, swivel biceps, double-hinged elbows, swivel/hinge wrists, a balljointed chest, hinged stomach, balljointed hips, swivel thighs, double-hinged knees, and swivel/hinged ankles. And even his dreadlocks get a swivel joint, where they join the scalp! He may be the wrong size, but he's still playable. In the story, Lucio stole the sonic technology that was being used to suppress the people and converted it into a tool for them to rally around - so, kind of like the heroes who keep ganking police radios at the protests and flooding the signal with thematically appropriate music (NWA's "Fuck tha Police," Tay Zonday's "Chocolate Rain," Judas Priest's "Breaking the Law") so the cops can't coordinate their violence. That's where his Sonic Amplifier weapon comes from, and while it doesn't play music to heal or hasten teammates, it does have a cord that plugs into his armband. His other accessories include two alternate left hands (one fist, one with two fingers extended) and a pair of translucent green energy effects that fit onto his feet. You know, exactly the type of thing we wanted for Tracer! The Overwatch line is, for now, kaput. At the end of last year, all solicitations for upcoming series were quietly cancelled, and Hasbro hasn't made a peep about the figures since. We're not saying it's specifically Lucio's fault, but he makes a convenient scapegoat, since he was the slowest seller and the only character to get a solo release both in his normal colors and as a repaint. He's a cool character, it turns out, and deserves more love, especially now. -- 06/06/20

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