The Good: Good sculpt, Interesting accessories, Decent balance and posability
The Bad: Minor accessory coloring issues, Right hand molding.
The Basics: Grand Nagus Zek is a very cool figure and Playmates almost made it untoppable!
One of the nice things about the collectible pogs that came with many of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine action figures was that the pogs effectively teased fans with information about forthcoming figures. Sadly, the teasing sometimes drew out the torment for the die-hard fans. Those of us collecting at the time had to wait over a year from seeing Grand Nagus Zek on the back of a pog to actually having the action figure in our hands!
For those unfamiliar with the character, in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the leader of the Ferengi was introduced in the episode "The Nagus" (reviewed here!) and made irregular annual reappearances. The character was Grand Nagus Zek, the ancient businessman whose wrinkled Ferengi visage became one of the most memorable Ferengi to appear on the show. It would also seem to make for a problematic action figure from a production standpoint, but Playmates Toys soldiered on and did an awesome job of creating the character in their 1996 line.
The 1996 Grand Nagus Zek action figure is a decent casting for the 5" figure line from Playmates Toys and it fleshes out well the broader Star Trek universe!
Basics
The Star Trek 1996 Collection of action figures contained twenty figures from Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and the drive for collectors was to find one of the limited "Tapestry" Picard figures, with little attention paid to most of the other figures in the assortment, like Zek. This remains the only Grand Nagus Zek figure ever made and as a result, he was bought up rapidly by collectors and continues to be a decent figure from the Star Trek toy line. As well, this figure was seldom a pegwarmer because it had a collectible pog. Card collectors hunted the SkyBox SpaceCap pog exclusive to the action figure, which helped sell what little stock that action figure collectors did not buy.
The Grand Nagus Zek figure is the Ferengi leader dressed in an ornate Ferengi business suit. Zek's suit features a plunging neckline and all sorts of beads and designs apparently woven into the suit coat. The giant key-like brooch at the front of the outfit is appropriately gaudy for a leader of the interstellar capitalists. The outfit is colored appropriately, though there are some bumps and accent pieces that look like they were intended to be jewels which are molded on, but not painted on.
Standing four and a half inches tall, this is a decent likeness of Grand Nagus Zek immortalized in plastic. The character is molded with his right hand molded closed and pointing the index finger, but the left hand ready to hold most of his accessories in a half-closed position. His legs have a fairly-neutral stance, though they are spread slightly. He has excellent balance and his pose is appropriate for the character. There is a decent level of uniform detailing, including the latinum brooch on the chest being both molded into the figure and then painted on. The sculpting details continue at the hands, where Zek has both defined knuckles and molded fingernails.
Grand Nagus Zek's face is molded in an expression that makes him look like he is laughing, including showing a few teeth. The Zek figure is sculpted with the usual Ferengi ears and nose ridges and these have painted accents, which is nice. What is exceptional, though, is that the ears and neck include Zek's prominent wrinkles and the figure looks amazing in those areas. Even the back of Grand Nagus Zek's head looks lumpy!
The paint job is exceptional as well, at least on the face. The skin tones are not monotonal white; the wrinkles add shading and subtlety. Even the eyes have dark circles under them and Grand Nagus Zek even has white hair growing out his ears! The figure's lips are light red and Zek's eyes are brown with white pupils, which is par for the Playmates course. The only real problem with the coloring is on the body of the figure's costume where there are molded bits that are raised and painted while some of the others are only molded on and lack the accent work.
Accessories
Grand Nagus Zek comes with five accessories, including the base, most of which were recycled for this sculpting! Zek comes with the Grand Nagus's Ferengi cane, 2 latinum pieces, a Ferengi refreshment bottle and the base. The Action base is a Ferengi symbol cast in the appropriate olive green and orange of the Ferengi Alliance. The the right side of the base, there is a peg which fits into the hole in either of Grand Nagus Zek's feet! When Grand Nagus Zek stands flatfooted on the stand, he is stable for balance and has a decent, neutral display appearance. The base is also enough to support Zek in more outlandish poses, which is cool.
The Ferengi head cane is the same 3 1/4" staff that was released with the Quark figure. The staff has a tiny molded Ferengi head on it and then is a textured plastic meant to look like wood which descends from there. The cane tapers to a point which may poke out a kid's eye, but otherwise is very cool. Despite the unrealistic coloring for the wooden part, the head looks real good and the brass/gold color of the plastic makes it seem more realistic.
The latinum pieces are essentially the same pieces that came with Quark as well. There is a strip and a slip and they are basically little rectangles with irregular sides and an alien script stamped into them. These look wonderful for what they are.
The bottle of "Ferengi Refreshment" (or booze as fans of the show know it actually was), is a vaguely carafe-shaped plastic bottle resembling an Erlenmeyer flask with a hole in the top. Sadly, this looks less convincing in Zek's hands as it is gold and opaque. It could have looked cool with the right production, but Playmates cheaped out on the accessory.
Unfortunately, the coloring monotonally is the way it is for all four of Zek's accessories; they are molded in a mediocre brass/gold plastic that only captures part of the intended look of the accessory. Because they features no accent work, they do not match the coloring detail of the actual action figure. Clearly Playmates went through some effort to sculpt the accessories realistically, but the coloring minimizes the sense of realism of the figure.
Even so, Playmates included a pog unique to the figure from SkyBox which attracted trading card collectors to this figure in addition to toy collectors. The SpaceCap has a popular shot of Grand Nagus Zek with a wormhole image behind him. The back has a checklist of all of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine figures that were intended to have pogs come with them. While this is a fairly unremarkable pog, the added incentive did generate interest with card collectors.
Playability
Zek continued a generally high level quality from Playmates and he was quite good at the time, pleasing collectors and fans alike. Zek is appropriately stiff, but has decent poseability. Grand Nagus Zek is endowed with twelve points of articulation: knees, groin socket, biceps, elbows, shoulders, neck, and waist. All of the joints, save the elbows and knees, are simple swivel joints. As a result, the neck turns left to right, but the head cannot nod. As well, the shoulders are not ball and socket joints and only rotate. Still, Playmates dealt with this limitation by having a swivel joint in the bicep, that allows everything below to turn and offers real decent poseability!
Moreover, for use with actual play, Zek may bend or extend at the elbows, which offers a greater amount of movement potential making him one of the more realistic Star Trek action figures to play with (for those who actually play with these toys!). On his base, Zek is exceptionally stable, even in the most ridiculous poses which the character could never pull off!
Collectibility
Playmates seemed to gauge about the right amount of interest for 1996 wave of Star Trek figures and Grand Nagus Zek sold fairly well, probably because it was the only Zek figure made and he was one of the few aliens in the line. Even now, the figure remains a decent seller as Wallace Shawn has begun to pop up at a few conventions and people wanted something different for him to sign go for this. It is hard to find a Zek for less than double the original issue price and it would be hard for even an Art Asylum release to devalue this figure.
As well, Playmates tried to make the figures collectible. Each figure has an individual number on the bottom of his right foot. In the attempt to make them appear limited, they had numbers stamped on them, though one has to seriously wonder how limited something should be considered when there are at least 5,300 figures out there (my Grand Nagus Zek is #005292!).
Overview
The Grand Nagus Zek figure is a good figure, but the coloring issues are enough to rob it of being considered perfect, despite how neat it is!
For other Star Trek figures from the 1996 line, please check out my reviews of:
Commander Worf
Benjamin Sisko As Seen In “Crossover”
Jadzia Dax As Seen in “Blood Oath”
Jem'Hadar Soldier
Odo From “Necessary Evil”
The Hunter Of The Tosk
Jean-Luc Picard As Seen In “Tapestry”
8.5/10
For other toy reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!
© 2012, 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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